Dress you up

Hillary Schieve has been a longtime member of the Reno community and the Reno News & Review family. In fact, back in the mid-90s she appeared on our cover dressed in doctors’ scrubs, clutching a bloody beef heart to raise awareness about organ donation. A former Olympic-class ice skater, Schieve had to have emergency surgery to replace a kidney, which she received from her sister Amanda. Now, she’s about to open a store over in the Sports West shopping center called Plato’s Closet. It’s at 1509 S. Virginia St., 322-0110.

How did you get involved with Plato’s Closet?

I don’t know. You know me, I believe in recycling everything [an apparent reference to recycling her sister’s kidney]. [Laughs.]

Yeah, really.

I do. And I looked at the concept, which is really big in the Midwest, and I don’t want anyone to pay full price, and I think we’ve got to be eco-friendly.

So you’re doing it out of love for the planet?

Yeah. That. And also I don’t believe in paying $200 for denim. Plus, the whole concept is so cool.

Tell me how it works.

You bring in your clothes that you’re not wearing anymore, and we’ll go through them and let you know what we want to pass on or purchase. We do have standards—like they have to be certain labels, they can’t have any holes or stains—we have criteria that we have to meet. But mainly our demographic is 12 to 25. We really hit that teen demographic.

So you’re buying clothes now?

Yeah, we’re going to open Dec. 27. Right now, we’re just building our inventory, and then we’ll open.

How many Plato’s Closets are there?

There’s 250 of us.

How does the corporation help you?

The reason I went with a franchise is you get so much support. They’ve done it, they’ve been successful. If I did it on my own, I probably would have made a ton of mistakes. But the cool thing is they have a computer system that I can type in any brand, and I type in the size and the condition, and it will spit out a price to pay the customer. I don’t have to barter with people. There are like 15,000 brands in the system. If anyone comes in, I can just type in the label, look it up, and I can see if we take it or if we don’t take it.

So do you take Levi’s?

Yes. We love men’s stuff because you guys don’t like to get rid of your stuff. You wear it and hold onto it.

Why not open for Christmas? Stocking up?

I tried to open in June, but we had a lot of problems with the build out. So, I missed my Christmas, but what are you going to do? It’s good, though. You can just come in and get cash for Christmas.

So what’s the deal? How much do you sell a pair of pants for?

Let’s say pants that are $150. We’ll probably pay you $10, and we’ll sell for $25.

And how is Amanda [Sanchez, formerly Schieve, the weather woman on KOLO a few years ago]?

She is doing great. She got a big, big job in Dallas, a top five market. …

You’re kidding me!

She went to Dallas, and she hated it … the show she was on ended up getting canceled. And Vegas called her and said, “You’re from Nevada, we’d love to offer you great job,” so she’s in Vegas now.

I’m trying to get her to come up here and help me run this place.